Natasha looked at her with loathing.

“How dare you touch him!” she hissed. “Can’t you see he’s mine?”

“No!” Aud sobbed. “You’re supposed to love me!”

Natasha thrust the girl forward and Pyotr brought the rock down, in an efficient little arc, against her temple. A spot of blood oozed from the wound, and she crumpled to the ground, silent.

Natasha bent down and stripped the coat off Aud’s motionless form.

“What do you know of love?” she said.

Then she stood up and smiled brilliantly at Pyotr.

“Follow me.” He started walking.

“Anywhere, my darling,” she said brightly. She trotted along behind him, like a dog at its master’s heels.

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Judy smiled carefully at Christine.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Certainly, Mademois—”

Judy didn’t get to hear her assistant finish the thought. She raced to the executive bathroom as fast as her pale peach Jimmy Choos would carry her. She only just made it. Shoving her way into the first open stall, she sank to her knees and retched violently.

A second later and she’d have been puking on the bathroom floor.

Judy heaved until there was nothing left to bring up. It had been like this four days out of seven, every morning. And when she didn’t vomit, she sure felt like it.

Judy was under the kind of stress she’d never dreamed possible. Now that he’d been fired, she was fair game at the company; all her colleagues insulted her.

There was a new regime in town. And it wasn’t one that offered her any protection.

For the first time in eight years, Judy had no cover at Massot. And she was learning just how much they all hated her. Even her new assistant was openly scornful.

That bastard Gregoire was installed back in his old office—Tom’s office—and he delighted in putting her down. Gregoire made crude remarks daily, as though he saw her as little more than a high-class hooker.

And Tom was endlessly distant. The best Judy could say for herself was that she was still at the château. He couldn’t bring himself to evict the mother of his baby.

And she clung to that, she clung on to it for grim death.

He wasn’t going to win.

Nor was Sophie, nor was Katherine.

She was Judy Dean from Oklahoma, and she was no goddamn quitter. Judy was part of the Massot story, part of this big chess game. And she was utterly determined to win.

Sitting at his desk, Gregoire Lazard cursed. His secretary had just presented him with another express dispatch from his lawyers; Tom Massot had filed another deposition in his suit.

The brat was not giving up.